Voting to Solve Problems

Reading the ballot guide for November's election was as depressing as usual.  Our government is in terrible shape, and no one has any idea how to even begin to fix it.  This is clearly true at the national level, and some states are worse off than others.  California is larger than most other countries, so with a system of government that doesn't scale well, we naturally are in worse shape than others.  Nearly everything they do seems to pretty clearly be making things worse.  Most of the measures on the ballot are to amend previous measures that have not worked as designed.  And most bills in congress seem to be the same as the state measures.  They are all convoluted combinations of regulations that are designed to be as confusing as possible, either by their creators, or by their detractors who were able to amend them with something that deliberately makes them terrible.  If we want to have measures on the ballot for voters to exercise authority over their representatives, how about requiring that no bill can be over 100 words in length, and all legislative votes are recorded by name and published within 24 hours, so we know what our representatives are actually doing to represent out interests in government.

I am watching the HBO series John Adams this week, for my third time.  It is very good at illustrating the types of negotiating and compromise that are required to successfully lead and govern a free people.  Representatives are held accountable by the people, and are not isolated from the real consequences of their decisions.  And even back then, on that scale, it was still difficult to achieve much, and the biggest complaint was that congress would not act.  Even that level of compromise and negotiation is unheard of today, and it is getting worse as the political landscape gets more polarized.  But that divide is based on the serious divergence of morals and values that has been taking place for quite some time.  And because the political divide is rooted in a moral divide, the opposing side can’t be compromised, and its followers aren't really respected enough to be negotiated with or listened to.  And so nothing ever really gets resolved.  And the country is too big for people to really notice that as it is taking place.